Wolfgang Kullmann

Wolfgang Kullmann (born October 12, 1927 in Berlin-Spandau ) is a German classical philologist who worked as a professor at the Universities of Marburg (1964–1975) and Freiburg (1975–1996).

Life

After graduating from high school in 1946, Kullmann began studying Greek , Latin , philosophy and Egyptology at Berlin's Humboldt University , which he completed in 1951 with the first state examination. In 1952 he received his doctorate at the University of Tübingen under Wolfgang Schadewaldt with the dissertation The Work of the Gods in the Iliad .

1957 followed his habilitation at the University of Freiburg with the work The sources of the Iliad . In it, he advocated the thesis that the Iliad is not based on vague legends , but rather poetically tangible sources, regardless of whether they have been handed down in writing or orally. These sources are made accessible with allusions to what is presupposed and through the secondary use of motifs in the Iliad. In addition, he includes in the source analysis the contents of late antiquity about the so-called " epic cycle ", the epic stories that contain events before and after the Iliad. With his habilitation thesis, he put Homer research on a new basis.

A second research focus for Kullmann is the philosopher Aristotle . He is particularly interested in his philosophy of science and scientific ideas. In 1974 in his work “Science and Method” and later in 1998 in the volume “Aristotle and Modern Science” he examined the categories of scientific thought, the scope of teleology , science and ethics , theory and empiricism and finally the topicality of Aristotelian biology . In his book "Aristotle and Modern Science", Kullmann explains that the scientific level of Aristotle was only achieved again with modern molecular biology , despite the immense gap in detailed knowledge . In his recently published work “About the parts of the living being” in the German Aristotle edition, the individual statements of Aristotle about hair, eyelashes, brows, teeth, mouth, intestines, urinary bladder and other organs are checked for the first time using the results of modern biology. It turns out that Aristotle's observations are astonishingly accurate.

In 1964 he was appointed full professor at the University of Marburg , in 1975 he moved to Freiburg, where he was dean of the Philosophical Faculty II from 1977 to 1978 . In 1996 he retired .

In the course of his teaching activity, Kullmann supervised 40 dissertations, including those by Antonios Rengakos , Georg Wöhrle , Hans-Christian Günther , Knut Usener , Jochen Althoff , Elisabeth Stein , Michael Reichel , Sabine Föllinger and Markus Asper . He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Universities of Trier (2000) and Thessaloniki . He is editor of the philosophy of antiquity series .

Kullmann has been married since 1959 and has two children. Today he lives in the Black Forest .

research

Kullmann's main research interests are the early Greek epic, Greek tragedy, the oral and written form of ancient Greek literature, the philosophy of Aristotle and its reception in modern times, and the history of ancient science and its continued effects.

Footnotes

1. ↑ The title is modified from Gadamer's book " Truth and Method ".

Fonts

• The work of the gods in the Iliad. Investigations into the question of the origin of the Homeric "apparatus of gods" . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1956.
• The sources of the Iliad . Steiner, Wiesbaden 1960.
• Science and method. Interpretations of the Aristotelian theory of natural science . de Gruyter, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-11-004481-1 .
• Homeric Motive, Stuttgart 1992, edited by Roland J. Müller (collection of articles on the occasion of his 65th birthday), ISBN 3-515-06206-8 .
• Aristotle and modern science . Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-06620-9 .
• Reality, Imagination and Theory. Small writings on the epic and tragedy in antiquity . Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08184-4 .

literature

• Inge Auerbach: Catalogus professorum academiae Marburgensis. Second volume: 1910 to 1971 . Marburg 1979, pp. 533-534
• Klaus Döring , Georg Wöhrle , Joachim Latacz , Günter Neumann (eds.): Festgabe for Wolfgang Kullmann on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Würzburger Jahrbücher , NF Vol. 13, 1987.
• Hans-Christian Günther, Antonios Rengakos (Hrsg.): Contributions to ancient philosophy. Festschrift for Wolfgang Kullmann on his 70th birthday. Steiner, Stuttgart 1997 (with list of publications), ISBN 3-515-06987-9 .
• Michael Reichel, Antonios Rengakos (ed.): Epea pteroenta. Contributions to Homer research. Festschrift for Wolfgang Kullmann on his 75th birthday . Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-07980-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Kullmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wolfgang Kullmann at the University of Freiburg